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Sunday, August 21, 2011

In the Flesh...and Out of my Comfort Zone

So, I thought it would be a good opportunity to briefly introduce my next tale while also pondering my move to Switzerland. I'm currently two weeks away from classes and having lots of fun navigating my way around Geneva and trying to learn French on the go. It's difficult, to say the least, and makes asking for directions, locating supermarkets and getting the internet at home all the harder, lol. That being said, I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of people who have tried to be helpful. Even if they don't speak English, the French (or Swiss French) have often tried to assist this lost author when its been pretty obvious that I need help with something or other. Who says the French are cold! I suppose the least I can do to return the favour is try harder to pick up their language (which is only fair), but I have a feeling that, no matter how fluent I may become, my stories will always be in English.

And now on to my new tale :) It'll be released in December and is called In the Flesh. This story was inspired by an episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark in which a young painter receives an offer by a mysterious gallery owner to complete an abandoned work (above image). In my tale, the paintings are very much completed, very much alive. And art truly imitates life, in the darkest way.

In the Flesh:

It is the flesh. The warmth of eternal lust...

In the backstreets of his drab city, Alex finds the perfect gift for a bitter girlfriend, who misses her rural home. Invited into a world of staring portraits, he walks away with the cool gaze of a former rancher, like him forced to move to modernity.

At first, the gift is welcome. Those blue eyes stare out from a world of rural comfort, what Rachel misses and loves. But there is more behind the gaze, so much more, and slowly it spreads, infects their lives, wanting to break free of its painted mileu and into the real world.

The art gallery. So many frozen faces, all staring...

Sheila is the mistress of these paintings. Each portrait captures the youth of long gone subjects, but for what purpose? Alex returns to her to relinquish his gift’s burden upon his home, his Rachel. And the mistress waits within these walls of paralysed eyes, soft whispers and gentle murmurs that defy the prison of gilded picture frames. Trapped youth yearns for freedom. But Sheila’s lust knows no bounds.

As Alex and Rachel are pulled into her game, they learn the true secret behind her brush. The secret of the flesh.

The gifts of lust do not come cheap. There is a price, for mistress and subject alike...